1.27.1994

This evening I’m writing while enjoying a whiskey on the rocks. One of my roommate’s friends, Craig, was nice enough to make me a compilation tape of recent Industrial music groups out these days. Since I’ve fallen out of touch with a group of friends that were really into this stuff I don’t get exposed to much new music anymore. Working nights doesn’t really help with the social scene. The comp tape was welcome. So I’m listening to these new bands I’ve never heard before like Chem Lab, Skrew, Diatribe, and Fear Factory. I like the Diatribe stuff the best so far. It’s really really good. Most of these bands are nothing more than grunge with a sort of dance beat to it and I like it don’t get me wrong, but it’s not Industrial music as such. It seems most people are confused about music these days. No one really knows what is Industrial music anymore. To me, real Industrial music incorporates old machinery and found sounds like pieces of scrap metal being hit with sledgehammers. And of course it should have some sort of a beat to it that is repetative like a machine. Early Industrial music came from groups in the UK like Throbbing Gristle, Nurse With Wound, and bands like Whitehouse. Alot of that material came out of the late 1970s and is quite difficult to listen to. Some people refer to it simply as “Difficult Music”, or “White Noise”. I like this sort of stuff alot, but it’s definetly an acquired taste.

The material I’m listening to now is more like dance music I guess, with a driving machine-like beat. That’s about all there is to it really. Skinny Puppy is a good example of the newer Industrial stuff I suppose. I like Puppy alot, they’re one of my favorite groups actually. But when you compare them to something like Test Department it’s easy to figure out what real Industrial music is all about. They’re completely different like night and day. I’d describe bands like Skinny Puppy as Dance-Industrial. Yeah.

I was curious about where all this Industrial music originally came from and I spent a couple of years doing alot of research in libraries. I think I was able to trace the English Industrial material back to it’s roots in France just after World War II. A group of French guys involved with a radio station formed up a school of Music called “Musique Concrete”, or simply Concrete Music. They used tape recorders and cut up the tape and re-arranged it in such a way that it had a beat and some sort of logical composition to it. A good example of Musique Concrete would be a recording of a table saw and a squeaky door hinge. The Musique Concrete artists would record both of these items separately and then cut up their tape with razors, put it back together in a new order, and then re-record it. Interesting stuff. I like it alot, but man is it hard to find. Really obscure material.

I definetly want to hear more of this Diatribe group. I’m going to have to find more of their stuff.